Unmanned vehicles, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are controlled remotely by an operator using a ground vehicle controller. The operator uses the ground controller, and various information provided by sensors of the vehicle, to guide the vehicle through different stages of movement and operation. The vehicle may include control processing circuitry to enable it to perform some operations autonomously, such as landing. Yet it is be necessary for the operator to determine what stage of movement the vehicle is currently in, and take control of the vehicle when necessary. For example, the operator may need to control the vehicle during flight until the operator decides the vehicle is in a suitable position to allow the vehicle to land autonomously.
Removing the need for continual manual intervention and allowing the vehicle to operate autonomously would give rise to a number of significant advantages. An autonomous vehicle would be able to operate effectively if communication with the remote vehicle controller is disrupted or disabled. Human errors associated with operator decisions could also be eliminated, particularly if the vehicle was able to discriminate between a wide variety of movement situations and navigate itself. A primary and significant difficulty is enabling the vehicle to determine when control changes between different movement stages or phases or in particular being able to switch between them and react like a person on the vehicle.
Accordingly it is desired to address this or at least provide a useful alternative.